Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950S

respectable families. But this girl could easily have been in potentially violent company and if she had stolen from them that undercurrent of violence could erupt into reality. Her life might well be in danger. I had not yet heard about the notorious cafés of Cable Street.
     
    I said, “Have you got anywhere to sleep tonight?”
     
    She shook her head.
     
    I sighed. The responsibility was beginning to dawn on me.
     
    “Let’s go and see if the YWCA is open. It’s very late, and I am not sure what time they close, but it’s worth a try.”
     
    We thanked the proprietor, and left. In the street I gave Mary her money, and we walked the mile to the YWCA. It had closed at 10 p.m.
     
    I was weary and tired. My stiletto heels were killing me. I had another mile to walk back to Nonnatus House, and a heavy day’s work to come. I cursed myself for getting involved at all. I could so easily have said at the bus stop, “No, I do not have change for five pounds”, and walked away.
     
    But I looked at Mary standing outside the closed door. She looked so small and vulnerable, and somehow utterly docile in my hands. How could I leave her in the street with, possibly, men looking for her who might kill her? Who would notice if she disappeared? I thought, There, but for the grace of God, go I, and that solemn thought was truer than you might suppose.
     
    She shivered in the cold night air, and pulled her thin jacket around her neck. I was wearing a warm camel hair coat with a beautiful fur collar of which I was very proud. The collar was detachable, so I took it off and put it round her thin little neck. She gave a sigh of joy and snuggled into the warm fur.
     
    “Ooh! that’s lovely,” she said, smiling.
     
    “Come on,” I said. “You had better come back with me.”
     

ZAKIR
     
     
     
    The mile walk from the YWCA to Nonnatus House seemed endless. I was too tired to want to talk any more, so we walked in silence. At first all I could think about was my feet and those infernal shoes, designed for elegance, not for hiking. Suddenly the bright idea came to me to take the damned things off! So I did, and my stockings too. The cold pavement felt lovely, and cheered me up.
     
    What was I going to do with Mary? There were only ten bedrooms at Nonnatus House, all of which were occupied. I decided to put her in the staff sitting room, and to find some blankets from the general storeroom. I knew I would have to be up before 5.30 a.m. to tell Sister Julienne as she came out of chapel. I could not risk anyone finding the girl without my first having informed the Sister-in-Charge. The nuns did not and could not take in every down-and-out who turned up at their door. If they did, they would be inundated, and the ten bedrooms would soon have ten sleeping in every bed! The nuns had a specific job to do - district nursing and midwifery - and their calling had to be directed to this end.
     
    As I trudged along in my bare feet, I pondered Mary’s words about the lorry driver, “He was the last good man I have met in this country.” How tragic. There are millions of good men - the vast majority, in fact. How was it that she, a sweet and pretty girl, had never met them? How had she come to this destitute state? Was it all, perhaps, due to love? Or the absence of love? Would I have been in Mary’s position, had it not been for love? My thoughts went, as they always did, to the man I loved. We had met when I was only fifteen. He could quite easily have used and abused me, but he didn’t, he respected me. He loved me to distraction, and wanted only my ultimate good. He had educated me, protected me, guided my teenage years. Had I met the wrong man at the age of fifteen, I reflected, I would probably be in the same position as Mary now.
     
    We trudged on in silence. I didn’t know what Mary was thinking about, but my soul was longing for the sight, the sound and the touch of the man I loved so much. Poor little thing. What sort of touch had she known if the lorry driver was the only good man she had met?
     
    We arrived at Nonnatus House. It was getting on for 2 a.m. I fixed Mary up in the sitting room with some blankets, and said, “The lavatory is down the end of this corridor, dear. Sleep well, and I will see you in the morning.”
     
    I went wearily to bed, and set my alarm for 5.15 a.m.
     
    The Sisters were surprised to see me as they came out of chapel. It was still the time of the Greater Silence of their